From The Guardian:

Anne Rice has tackled vampires, werewolves and witches in her fiction, but now the bestselling novelist is taking on a real-life enemy: the anonymous “anti-author gangsters” who attack and threaten writers online.

The Interview with the Vampire author is a signatory to a new petition, which is rapidly gathering steam, calling on Amazon to remove anonymity from its reviewers in order to prevent the “bullying and harassment” it says is rife on the site. “They’ve worked their way into the Amazon system as parasites, posting largely under pseudonyms, lecturing, bullying, seeking to discipline authors whom they see as their special prey,” Rice told the Guardian. “They’re all about power. They clearly organise, use multiple identities and brag about their ability to down vote an author’s works if the author doesn’t ‘behave’ as they dictate.”

Rice herself was a victim of the Amazon “bullies”, when earlier this year she began to give advice to would-be writers on the retailer’s message boards. “The discourse was meaningful and productive, questions asked and answered, and it was generally very enlightening,” said Todd Barselow, the freelance editor who launched the petition to try to convince Amazon to change its policies. “Then the bullies, trolls, jerks, whatever you want to call them, found the thread. That’s when the attacks started happening. It got very ugly very fast … With each attack, Anne tried to diffuse the situation and out these people for what they are: bullies. Well, that just made them frenzy even more. Eventually, I left the thread. It got too ugly for me. Anne stuck it out for a while, but finally she called it quits, too.”

. . . .

She told the Guardian that “it’s an obsession with them, a sport, a full time hobby”. “I think the anti-author gangster bully culture is made up of individuals who desperately want a place at the table in the world of books and readers,” she said. “I hope Amazon and other book websites do eventually clean them out. They certainly don’t serve the true book buyers and readers of this world. And they are gratuitously destructive towards the creative community. They are like termites in a beautiful wooden building, there for what they can get for themselves, quite oblivious to the building’s purpose or beauty.”

Link to the rest at The Guardian and thanks to Nick for the tip.

From National Public Radio:

If it seems like male authors get more attention, there are hard numbers to back that up: The VIDA count.

VIDA is a women’s literary organization, and the “count” is the result of eight months spent tracking gender disparity in leading publications. VIDA tallies the gender of authors whose books are being reviewed as well as the gender of those doing the reviewing.

The VIDA numbers have changed very little over the last four years. The Atlantic, The London Review of Books, The New Republic and The Nation have all had an overall ratio of 75 men to 25 women, including both reviewers and those reviewed. At The New York Review of Books, it’s 80-20. VIDA’s count director Jen Fitzgerald says the numbers are so clear that they’re starting to change the conversation.

. . . .

“I don’t know the numbers in terms of what’s being published, how many books are by women and how many books are by men,” says Pamela Paul, the editor of The New York Times Book Review. The Timesshowed improvement in this year’s VIDA count: In 2013, the number of male and female book reviewers was almost equal, and they reviewed 332 books written by women and 482 by men. Paul took over as editor during that time, and she says diversifying the book review section was a priority for her.

“It is not hard work at all. That’s the big secret — it’s not hard,” Paul says. “There are so many good books out there by women, and there are so many incredibly good book critics out there who are women. So I actually have to say that I didn’t find it to be an incredible strain. I don’t think any of our editors at the Book Review felt that we were unduly burdened.”

. . . .

But Beha says other changes are needed too. He contends men and women approach the magazine differently with ideas and that may also affect the numbers.

“Speaking broadly, of course, a male writer comes to you with an idea and you say ‘This isn’t quite right for us, try us again.’ If I say that ‘try us again’ in the email, I may get a response the next day with three new ideas,” Beha says. “And there is a tendency, I think, among female writers to emphasize the ‘this isn’t right for us’ part, rather than the ‘try us again’ part.”

Link to the rest at NPR and thanks to Meryl for the tip.

From CBC Books:

Authors, be careful what you wish for.

New research out of the University of Chicago suggests that books are consistently reviewed more harshly if read after winning a prestigious literary prize than before.

. . . .

A research team led by economic sociologist Amanda Sharkey analyzed thousands of reader reviews of 32 pairs of books. One book from each pair had won a major award — such as Man Booker Prize or the PEN/Faulkner Award — while the other book had received a nomination but didn’t win.

. . . .

“We found that winning a prestigious prize in the literary world seems to go hand-in-hand with a particularly sharp reduction in ratings of perceived quality,” Sharkey said.

Link to the rest at CBC Books

Wolf, who submitted this item, says:

Compulsion Reads was a sincere attempt of two indie writers, Jessica Bennett and Leslie Ramey, to solve the discoverability problem by recognizing good, independently published work. Anyone could submit a book–the fee started at around $20 and was based on word count. The money paid the evaluators and covered publicity costs and did not guarantee approval. CR’s closure is an apparent case of burnout, and leaves one wondering about the viability of similar endeavors–Brag and Awesome Indies come to mind–which are an alternative to vanity reviewers such as Kirkus.

From Compulsion Reads:

Leslie and I first conceived of what would eventually become Compulsion Reads over two years ago. We were two self-published authors looking for some sort of quality standard to help distinguish our novels from the massive flood of books hitting the market. Our search led us to a startling conclusion. No one was endorsing self-published  books based on a standard set of criteria.

We started talking and hatching. The result would become Compulsion Reads, a quality endorsement for indie and self-published books that met a basic quality standard. When Leslie and I first rolled out our idea, we had no idea of the reception that we would receive, but were thrilled that it was mostly positive. Books started flowing in, and we got to meet many amazing, talented, hard-working and creative self-published and indie authors. The need is clear.

. . . .

Our plan for Compulsion Reads was good, perhaps a little too good. After two years of reading furiously, writing reviews, blogging, attending events, posting on Facebook and constantly thinking about how to continue to support our authors, Leslie and I are feeling the strain. Somewhere in our efforts to grow Compulsion Reads, our own writing began to suffer.

As much as we both love Compulsion Reads, our first love and first obligation has always been to our own writing. With this in mind, we have decided to close the doors of Compulsion Reads effective February 1, 2014.

Link to the rest at Compulsion Reads

From Indies Unlimited:

I think folks need to remember that Kirkus Reviews came into existence as a periodical way back in the 1930s as an aid for librarians to make book purchases. When you think about it, to get included in something like that was a pretty big deal. Having your book in the library is some of the cheapest, most repetitive advertising that an author can get for his or her book. You get a long string of readers and potential customers for that and future work. Kirkus was pretty much the standard for the followers of the Dewey Decimal system until the eighties, when budgets cut-backs started to hit libraries in ways they weren’t used to being attacked. Many libraries were forced to curtail their purchasing of actual books.

. . . .

The company was given a brief respite with the advent and popularization of that selfsame Internet when Amazon.com started using Kirkus Reviews for their book listings. Unfortunately for Kirkus, that revenue stream dried up in the early years of the 21st century. From what I can determine, Kirkus had a penchant for making bad reviews for books. And I don’t mean “bad” as in “Your book bites so hard that it makes Twilight look like A Farewell to Arms!” The problem was that many of the reviews were barely more than plot summaries with a line of two of somewhat vague praise or condemnation – not much for anyone to use for promotion and hardly anything for a reader to use to when thinking about purchasing a book.

. . . .

The company struggled along with fading ad revenues until 2009, when with some fanfare,Kirkus Reviews closed their doors. That’s an important point to consider: Kirkus Reviews, as it exists now in this space-time continuum, is not really the 80-year-old entity that it claims to be on its website. The current Kirkus Reviews rose from the ashes like a cash-hopeful phoenix in 2010. The company’s barely four years old.

Kirkus’ rates for reviews of independently/self-published books are what usually have people up in arms. We all know now, from that li’l talk a few weeks ago with Ms. Schechner, that Kirkus does NOT charge traditional publishers for reviews. Ms. Schechner said that they get free reviews because of their subscriptions to, and the advertising they purchase in, the Kirkus Reviews magazine.

. . . .

A subscription to the digital and print editions of Kirkus Reviews magazine for US publishers runs $199 a year. The magazine currently comes out twice a month.

Kirkus has stated that it reviews around 7,000 traditionally published books and about 3,000 self-published books annually.

. . . .

So 3,000 [self-published] books get reviewed, at a cost of $425 for each review (for this example, we’re not going to worry about the expedited costs). That means from self-published books, Kirkus has made $1,275,000.

Link to the rest at Indies Unlimited

PG says Old Kirkus had some credibility. In his unflinchingly humble opinion, for indies, New Kirkus is pretty much a vanity review publisher.

The article in Indies Unlimited estimates Kirkus has a circulation of about 3,000. That’s fewer people than come to The Passive Voice on most days.

Maybe PG needs to start a vanity snark service.

No, he’s not sure exactly how it would work.

But prices would start at a very reasonable $2500 for the bronze package.

From The Washington Times:

In a decision that could reshape the rules for online consumer reviews, a Virginia court has ruled that the popular website Yelp must turn over the names of seven reviewers who anonymously criticized a prominent local carpet cleaning business.

The case revolves around negative feedback against Virginia-based Hadeed Carpet Cleaning. The owner, Joe Hadeed, said the users leaving bad reviews were not real customers of the cleaning service — something that would violate Yelp’s terms of service. His attorneys issued a subpoena demanding the names of seven anonymous reviewers, and a judge in Alexandria ruled that Yelp had to comply.

. . . .

The Virginia Court of Appeals agreed this week, ruling that the comments were not protected First Amendment opinions if the Yelp users were not customers and thus were making false claims.

. . . .

Mr. Hadeed, who deferred comment to his attorney, said in court documents that he believed most of the critiques — many of which complained about unfair business practices and deceptive advertising — were coming from a small number of users who were creating fake accounts to post multiple reviews.

. . . .

In a 25-page majority opinion, Judge William G. Petty said, “Generally, a Yelp review is entitled to First Amendment protection because it is a person’s opinion about a business that they patronized.

“The anonymous speaker has the right to express himself on the Internet without the fear that his veil of anonymity will be pierced for no other reason than because another person disagrees with him,” Judge Petty wrote.

However, the court said that First Amendment rights do not cover deliberately false statements and agreed that Mr. Hadeed provided sufficient reason to think the users might not have been customers.

If “the reviewer was never a customer of the business, then the review is not an opinion; instead, the review is based on a false statement” and not subject to First Amendment protection, the opinion stated.

Link to the rest at The Washington Times and thanks to Barb for the tip.

From Venture Galleries:

I’m reading 419 by Will Ferguson—a powerful story, well told, with turns of phrase that delight.

“Storms without rain. Winds without water. She woke, and when she sat up, the dust fountained off her and the voice that accompanied her once again stirred, once again whispered, “Get up. Keep walking. Don’t stop.”

Vivid imagery abounds.

“Zuma rock denoted not only the traditional geographical centre of Nigeria-the “navel of the nation” as it was known-but also the border between the sha’ria states of the north and the Christian states of the sough. Zuma rose up, rounded and sudden, on striated cliffs etched by a thousand years of rainfall and erosion. The ridges carved down its sides were the sort of lines that might be left by acid or tears.”

. . . .

The narrative makes me cringe and cry. I know this is a book I will read more than once.

I email my young Nigerian friend to tell him about the novel. He responds:

“ 419 – an internet scam organized by Nigerian scammers (aliases: Yahoo Boys, G-Boys). 419 is an alias that dates back to the past (I believe 1994-1997) in Nigeria, when innocent people, mainly teenagers, were repeatedly abducted and killed.

. . . .

I’m about three quarters of the way through the book at this point and the urge to learn more about Ferguson’s research can no longer be ignored. Googling proves to be a huge mistake. The first items that come up are reviews from highly respected sources, and while they have some good things to say and certainly don’t lambaste the book, they do contain enough negative comments to diminish my pleasure in the reading and cause a rather sour feeling.

. . . .

Sitting now, writing this, I wonder if I should stop writing reviews. Am I guilty of spoiling another’s enjoyment, of perhaps causing someone, because of my arrogance, to dismiss a novel without even giving it a chance? Conversely, does a review I write of a book I love convince a reader to pick up that book only to find that it doesn’t work for them? What makes me think I can or should pass judgment for another reader?

But the author in me craves reviews. They’re our “word of mouth” and vital to marketing. If we’re to have sales at all, we need people talking about our books, reviewing them, recommending them to fellow readers.

Link to the rest at Venture Galleries and thanks to Randall for the tip.

From The New York Times:

You are no longer the sucker you used to be.

So suggests continuing research from the Stanford Graduate School of Business into the challenges marketers face in reaching consumers in the digital age. As you might suspect, the research shows that a wealth of online product information and user reviews is causing a fundamental shift in how consumers make decisions.

As consumers rely more on one another, the power of marketers is being undermined, said Itamar Simonson, a Stanford marketing professor and the lead researcher.

. . . .

[S]ome subjects chose among three Minolta cameras: an inexpensive one, a midprice one and an expensive one. Another group was given a choice of just two of the Minoltas: the midprice one and the less expensive one.

The researchers found that when study subjects had only two choices, most chose the less expensive camera with fewer features. But when given three choices, most chose the middle one. Dr. Simonson called it “the compromise effect” — the idea that consumers will gravitate to the middle of the options presented to them.

The study showed how marketers could manipulate consumers. Just by presenting three differently priced options, they could get consumers to gravitate to a midprice one from a less expensive one. This finding further led Dr. Simonson and other scholars to describe widespread “irrational” behavior by consumers who made decisions not based on a product’s actual value but on how the item was presented relative to other products.

Flash forward to the new experiment. It was similar to the first, except that consumers could have a glimpse at Amazon. That made a huge difference. When given three camera options, consumers didn’t gravitate en masse to the midprice version. Rather, the least expensive one kept its share and the middle one lost more to the most expensive one.

Link to the rest at The New York Times and thanks to James for the tip.

User reviews are another disruptive force for legacy publishing. One of the key marketing activities of traditional publishers was getting magazine and newspaper reviews, something that used to be impossible for an indie author.

User reviews are very democratic. No gatekeepers here.

Plus, they’re available on Amazon, Nook, etc., at the precise point where a prospective purchaser is making a buy/no buy decision. PG would argue that, because of their proximity, user reviews can be more influential on purchases than the mass media variety.

From Craig Childs via Southern New Hampshire University’s MFA program:

If you’re worth your salt as a writer, someday someone is going to rip you apart in print. It may be a letter in the mail, a New York Times review, or a random comment on Amazon.com. You can take these as personal slights, which I certainly do, but once you simmer down, you will have the opportunity to use criticisms as tools for your own writing.

. . . .

The second step is to look back at the review and consider what is right about it. I don’t mean second guess yourself, but study it. Think of it being not about you, but about what you’ve written. It may be an extreme view, but there must be something to get out of it. One of your mandates as a writer is to get better, and this affords an opportunity.

. . . .

The danger with studying bad reviews is that you might overcompensate and kill what is unique and wonderful about your own voice. Be careful with that. You have to treat these critics as editors who are out to get you. Pick through and find what rings true, even if it rings faintly. You generally have a critic on your writing shoulder all the time. At least this will give your personal critic a broader voice.

. . . .

It’s amazing how many positive responses can pass with little effect, but that one negative is a stomach punch. I’ve had people write saying they literally threw a book of mine in the trash, or even thought of burning it.

Link to the rest at Southern New Hampshire University

From Brain Pickings:

Some take advantage of Amazon’s tendency to mash up the brand name and product description in the same title field, which often makes for some inherently funny propositions — like the Pelican 1510-004-110 Case with Padded Dividers, Black, on which “Teddy Picker” pounces elegantly:

Link to the rest at Brain Pickings and thanks to Maggie and Barb for the tip.